Advent of the Three Calamities

Chapter 829: The Three Calamities [2]

Despite the changes that were happening around and the sudden expansion of the crack, Emmet remained completely unperturbed.

*Puff*

In the silence that took over the surroundings, he took a drag of the cigarette in his hand. His movements were neither slow nor hurried, his eyes closing for a brief moment as he savored the taste of the cigarette.

Eventually, he opened his eyes again, his mouth opening as he began to speak,

“…There exists a total of nine of them.”

The plume of smoke drifted in the air.

“Nobody knows their true number, but I know… I’m sure it’s nine of them. If I’m not wrong, there should be eight in the future.”

“Eight..?”

I thought for a moment before recalling something.

’Right, Noel and Panthea managed to kill one Outer Being.’

Emmet’s eyes turned even hazier as he spoke. It was almost as if he was looking somewhere distant. He was both present and yet not there.

What was he seeing?

Eventually, his gaze regained some clarity as he began speaking again.

“Their goal is to trap us here so that we won’t touch the Source. They want to keep the source to themselves. Or at least, that’s how I interpret the situation. I am still not sure, but if there’s one thing that I’m sure about, it’s that power…”

Emmet paused, his hand moving towards his lips as he took another slow drag. This time, his hazy eyes trembled for a moment.

His hand, too.

“…It’s not something anyone would want to talk about. It’s contagious… Addictive. And it’s also the very root of this entire world… and the universe itself.”

*Puff*

“They have eyes and ears everywhere. They have rooted their influence through every corner of the world, and mere words can arouse their attention. Even now, they are probably watching. Listening.”

A hazy smile spread across his features as he looked towards the crack.

Something pulsed from within.

Almost as if it was trying to warn him, but his smile grew as he flicked the butt of the cigarette in the direction of the crack.

As he did, he looked back at me.

“Don’t worry too much. They might listen, but not if I don’t want them to.”

Emmet’s eyes turned completely white for a split moment, a strange power surging from out of his body. The moment I felt the power, my mind paused as I was somewhat familiar with it, and I held my breath.

’Source…’

Not even a moment later, something seemed to shift around us.

It wasn’t noticeable, but I could tell.

The gaze of the being behind the crack…

It had shifted away from us.

What sort of…

“I may be weaker than the current you, but my connection with the Source is far greater than yours. In fact, it’s incomparably better.”

Weaker than me…?

The thought shook me out of my confusion, but as I tried to ask about it, he began speaking again.

“Do you happen to know why the Mirror Dimension was created?”

His question made me pause.

This question…

I knew the answer to this question very well, but it seemed to be a rhetorical question as he continued speaking, not giving me a chance to respond.

“It’s a prison. One designed to keep us locked in, never giving us the chance to escape. Even if we do break the shackles of the Dimension, our bodies won’t be able to handle the real world anymore. It’s a well-designed prison designed to make sure that we can never escape.”

Even though I already knew the truth, hearing it spoken aloud, from my own mouth, made my throat go dry.

’If I said it’s impossible to escape, then there really isn’t a way to escape.’

’I’ was someone who had seen everything. In that regard, when ’I’ said that it was impossible to escape, then it was true.

“That’s when the Three Calamities come into play.”

Emmet continued, taking out another cigarette and lighting it up.

*Puff*

“Akhyrn, Vhor’Sael, and Leth’Ruun.”

For a moment, the surroundings fluctuated. The crack that appeared in the distance pulsed, and a ’gaze’ hovered in our general direction.

My heart paused at the sight, a certain sense of dread sweeping down my entire body.

The already silent world turned even more silent.

Not a noise, not a sound.

A suffocating tension lingered across the surroundings as the ’gaze’ continued to hover around us.

But thankfully, it didn’t last long.

It soon looked away, the crack pulsing in the air.

*Puff*

With seemingly no care in the world, Emmet leaned back and took a slow drag of the cigarette.

“…They’re the architects of the Mirror Dimension, and the only ones capable of influencing the world itself.”

His brows knitted for a moment as he looked at the streets beneath.

“The Source thrives on the existence and faith of all living things. It’s the key to everything.”

“Faith…?”

“Mhm. Indeed.”

Emmet pursed his lips, his pale face turning away from the streets below, and onto me again.

Staring at him, I struggled to find the man standing before me to be me.

I knew it was me, and yet…

It also felt like a completely different person.

He…

Didn’t look like he belonged at all in this world.

“The Source is the true God. No matter which deity one chooses to worship, all faith ultimately flows back to the Source, maintaining the balance.”

My eyes started to widen.

“The more conscious and self-aware a being is, the stronger the faith is, sustaining the Source’s balance. Taking such a life disrupts that harmony, and when such faith is killed, the source weakens. This is especially so if the beings have discovered a way to connect or touch with the source. Killing them would only lead to the weakening of the source. That’s why we are imprisoned instead of killed. This is the real truth behind it all.”

“…..”

I stood in silence, quietly absorbing the information.

I hadn’t really thought about it much in the past, but it all suddenly made sense. The reason why the Outer Beings trapped the Gods instead of killing them, alongside the rest of humanity.

It also became clearer why they had allowed humanity to rise again.

The Source required ’Faith’.

It wasn’t that they were being arrogant or looked down on humans, but rather that eliminating such a race would only mean they would become weaker, as the Outer Beings were tied to the Source.

But there was still something that I was curious about.

“What about the Calamities? You haven’t really given me a proper explanation.”

Emmet mentioned something along the lines of, ’Arciteches’, ’Only ones capable of influencing the world itself’, but what exactly did this mean?

“It means what I said.”

*Puff*

Taking a slow and quiet drag, Emmet closed his eyes before exhaling all the smoke in the air.

“…It’s not easy to enter this world. However powerful the Outer Beings are, entering Earth is not a simple task. The only ones that are capable of achieving such a feat are the Three Calamities. Taking over the bodies of simple humans, they quietly infect their minds and bodies until they completely take over and create gates where they can step into the world and shatter the dimension from within itself, creating another Mirror Dimension.”

*Puff*

“What makes them truly terrifying is that even if you manage to find the Calamities, you can’t stop them. The moment you kill their host, the Outer Beings simply move on, claiming another body. And once that happens, finding them again becomes nearly impossible. That’s why, rather than fighting them, the goal is to contain them. That’s the only thing we can do against them. But it isn’t easy. It’ll get harder the more they grow up, and their insecurities grow. I’m sure you’ve just experienced it yourself.”

Emmet’s eyes turned even hazier as he spoke.

“It gets easier and easier to infect their mind. If you’re not prepared, you might find the meter to fill to 100% in the blink of an eye.”

For a brief moment, his hand stopped mid-motion as he was about to take a drag of the cigarette, his eyes flickered, and his face paled.

I knew in an instant that he was most likely experiencing a vision.

No, two.

…Or maybe more.

They were endless. Constant.

And the reason why I’d gone mad in the end.

But this wasn’t something that I could stop.

Instead, I focused my thoughts and attention on all the things that I’d just heard.

A lot was starting to make sense. In particular, Evelyn’s situation.

Taking into account how the calamity meter had hardly moved in the past, but had gone up by so much with just this incident, it was clear… time was running out.

’But still, it’s a relief.’

This was the first time I had heard answers without needing to find them myself, after months of searching. But after hearing everything, I wasn’t so sure it was a good thing.

’…The only thing we can do is contain them?’

I thought back to the situation with Evelyn, and my heart sank.

By now, it was clear to me.

’I’ had used the visions in the future to figure out who the Calamities were. Perhaps, through some arrangements, I had ’orchestrated’ certain scenarios in order to make sure that I was closer to the Calamities and prevent them from awakening.

The system quest was something I had arranged for this very specific reason.

’But this still makes me question the reason why I’ve been brought all the way here.’

I had used the Third Leaf right before Evelyn turned.

This was a last-ditch effort that I had used to buy myself more time to figure out the situation.

But what now…?

What was I supposed to do now that Evelyn was about to turn?

If it went according to the words I had just heard, the world was practically one step away from complete ruin. I’d also be dead, considering the power that I felt.

Something. Anything…

I needed to think of a way to resolve this mess.

“There’s no need for you to worry too much.”

A voice echoed once more, snapping me out of my thoughts, as I found Emmet looking at me with the same hazy eyes as before. No, looking better, his eyes were even more hazy than before. They almost looked… white.

“All Three Calamities must awaken for the next Dimension to take form. Each one is essential to the creation of that prison, and…”

Emmet paused, his brows furrowing in apprehension as he muttered, “…This time, it’ll be a lot different from the past. It’ll be a prison none of us will ever be able to escape, even if we try again.”

He took a deep breath, his trembling hand moving towards his lips as he tried to take a drag of the cigarette in his hand, only stopping once he realized it was finished.

That was also the moment he said,

“…They have learned from their mistakes.”